One of my most vivid memories of literacy comes from when I was around eight or nine years old. I have always loved to read and so my parents always had me a fully stocked bookshelf, complete with Dr. Seuss, Little Golden Books, Goosebumps…any collection you could think of. I thought that at the age of eight, or nine, I was the most spectacular reader, which in turn lead me to believe that I was also the most spectacular teacher. Believing that I was born to teach, I would call in my four brothers to my room, (one older and three younger), and make them sit in front of my bed so I could read to them like my (and all of yours) kindergarten teacher would do. I would read the page of the book, complete with exaggerated emotion to give that extra ah effect, and then I would fan the book amongst the four of them to show the pictures that everyone always waited anxiously to see.
This memory that I have of my past really confirms my belief that I should be a teacher. This experience has also made me realize that I loved reading so much because I was reading ten page books. Don’t get me wrong, I do still love to read, but I love to read books of my choice (Mitch Albom, for example), not books I am forced to read (Frankenstein, for example).
This experience connects with my definition from class in the way that I believe literacy deals with the communication of words. I was able to communicate written words on a page to people and tell a story. My brothers didn’t have to read the words themselves to comprehend what the pictures were portraying, but by listening to me talk they were able to understand what was happening in the book.
The idea you bring up, about how the most important was to activate your literacy switch was to share with others, really reinforces the idea we toyed around with in class. The one where we talked about expressive dance, and how as long as there was someone who could interpret the symbols it could be defined as literacy. I see this pattern very clearly in your work. However, I wanted to challenge the idea of works being the catalyst. You make a point of mentioning how you could change your voice inflection to please the crowd, and I’m venturing to guess, that you could do the same with a room of people unfamiliar with English as long as you had the pictures. What I think I’m getting around to saying, is…. Was it actually the words you used in the storytelling or the emotion you conveyed that helped you define your literacy.
Since you’re interested in teaching, which do you think is more important: being able to better explain complex ideas to a class using your own literacy, like in the example you gave in your post, or trying to get your students to also obtain a love of reading and a passion for literacy? I think there is a definite difference between the two and since they are both very important, I wonder if there is a way to most effectively combine the two.